


give us some light and god's pure love (we know what you've been dreaming of)

by procrastinatingbookworm



Series: Hello, I'm good for nothing - will you love me just the same? [10]
Category: Hollow Knight (Video Games)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Gen, Injury, M/M, Mental Breakdown, Temporary Character Death, also sorry about the title i couldn't resist, fantasy judaism, now featuring fantasy hebrew, writing this fic reminded me why i usually don't write so many characters at once
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-19
Updated: 2020-10-19
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:13:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,365
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27094093
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/procrastinatingbookworm/pseuds/procrastinatingbookworm
Summary: Everyone gets a moment to breathe.
Relationships: Grimm & The Radiance (Hollow Knight), Hornet & Quirrel (Hollow Knight), Lord of Shades & The Radiance (Hollow Knight), Quirrel/Tiso (Hollow Knight), The Hollow Knight | Pure Vessel & Hornet & The Knight, The Knight & Quirrel (Hollow Knight)
Series: Hello, I'm good for nothing - will you love me just the same? [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1957039
Comments: 20
Kudos: 96





	give us some light and god's pure love (we know what you've been dreaming of)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [feralphoenix](https://archiveofourown.org/users/feralphoenix/gifts).



> This fic, and honestly the series as a whole, is dedicated to feralphoenix, who's probably responsible for a good 50% of this series as it exists, both for relevant meta-posts that inspired this series' sharp turn onto a collision course with the plot, and for being a fantastic cheerleader as I cranked this thing out. Thanks for everything!

Quirrel isn’t sure how he’s still conscious.

It seems like some sort of oversight. Hornet is slumped in the crook of the Vessel’s arm, needle hanging from her wrist by a string of silk. Ghost is lying where they fell, sprawled across the ground like just another dead-eyed corpse.

Tiso’s still alive, but it’s a near thing. Quirrel holds him against his chest, as if that will help keep him alive, mouth pressed against Tiso’s throat. He feels Tiso’s pulse triphammering, so quick he can barely pick out the individual beats.

(The speed is more terrifying than a slow beat would be. At least if Tiso’s heart were slowing Quirrel would  _ know _ that he was dying, would be able to predict the slow progression toward the end, the way he’d listened to Monomon’s heart slow to a stop through the wall of her tank. This way, he’ll only know that Tiso’s dead when he dies.)

Quirrel wishes he were unconscious. He wishes he’d thought to help Ghost with the Nail before Tiso did. He wishes he’d thought of the consequences before chasing his terror into the Temple’s heart, wishes he’d been paying attention so he could’ve dragged Tiso out of the Temple before he got any stupid ideas.

(He wishes he’d never left the shore of Blue Lake.)

The infection that grew over the doorway the moment the Dream Nail struck true pulses its heartbeat, as if to mock him.

The Vessel is staring at him, eyes weeping orange and black, mask tilted just slightly to the side, as if they can’t hold their head up. They cradle Hornet to their ruined chest, the way Quirrel cradles Tiso.

If Quirrel had the energy, he’d lift his nail and put the two of them—the Vessel and himself—out of their misery, but he doesn’t. Darkness eats at the corners of his vision, weighs down his limbs.

Tiso’s pulse pounds and pounds and pounds and pounds and stops.

Just stops.

Quirrel barely has time to shout Tiso’s name before the air rips open in a blur of Light and spirographs.

The split in the air  _ screams, _ the Light pouring out of it bright enough to burn, and Quirrel is certain that they’re all dead.

The Light fades to a faint glow, emanating from a soft, white, winged bug, lying on the ground next to Ghost. 

There’s a sick sound, like decay in slow motion, from behind Quirrel, and he turns to see the infection over the door sloughing away, losing color and form as it drops, until the ground is slick with brownish sludge.

The white bug screeches in displeasure, and the Temple cracks above their heads, like the egg it was named for. The bug screeches again, this time in what sounds like bewilderment, and flies for the exit.

Rubble falls from the ceiling, in flakes and then in chunks, and Quirrel stops thinking and starts moving. Tiso is terribly still in Quirrel’s arms, but he’s in Quirrel’s arms, and that’s what matters. Quirrel hefts him onto his shoulder, scoops up Ghost in the other arm and turns to the Vessel.

“We need to go,” he says to them. “ _ Now. _ ”

The Vessel doesn’t move. They probably  _ can’t _ , if the way they’re slumped is any clue. They cradle Hornet in their arm like a doll, head tilted up, but they don’t even try to get up.

A huge slab of the ceiling crashes just shy of the Vessel’s leg. They don’t even twitch for a moment, then, with visible effort, offer Hornet to Quirrel, like they’re passing the salt across the meal-table.

Quirrel laughs. He laughs, and it hurts, but he shifts Ghost up onto his shoulder and gathers Hornet to his other side, her body limp and  _ wrong _ in his arm.

He’s going to have to leave them. If he had more limbs, he could carry Tiso and Hornet and still drag the Vessel out of the Temple, but he only has four limbs, like every other civilized bug in Hallownest—

(...except the bugs of Deepnest, and the working class of maggots, and winged bugs like young mantises and some of the sentries in the City of Tears, and Monomon, and…)

—Quirrel only has four limbs. He can’t carry them all.

He can’t carry them all. His four weak limbs are already shaking under the weight of the three he is carrying, and the Temple is falling around him and the Vessel just stares, the brown sludge of the dying infection seeping from their broken eye like tears.

Quirrel can’t carry anything. He can’t even carry himself. Ghost succeeded, despite everything, and it will all be for nothing, because Quirrel, useless weak-legged scholar Quirrel, who only ever raised a nail to save his own shell, just happened to stay conscious longer than anyone actually  _ helpful— _

Ghost’s body seizes. Their tiny form slides from Quirrel’s shoulder and  _ twitches _ , like an infected bug—no, like a dead husk being taken over by one of the  _ awful _ things in Deepnest that curled up inside the bodies of infected bugs and waited for them to die before they poked their legs out and  _ scuttled _ at an unsuspecting adventurer that just wanted to get back to where he  _ was _ —

Ghost’s mask splits. It cracks open, spilling inky shadow onto the rubble-covered ground of the temple, and something roars out, something huge and dark with eyes like a spider.

It scoops up Quirrel in a single hand, catches Tiso as he slips from Quirrel’s shoulder with another, picks up the Vessel in a third, and steps out of the crumbling temple as though it takes no effort at all, setting them all down on the stone.

It’s very quiet, for a moment. 

Quirrel isn’t sure there’s a single part of him that doesn’t hurt.

The thing—Ghost, the thing that is Ghost, the great spider-like creature of darkness that’s so huge that its head brushes the ceiling of the cavern, wobbles like wet ink.

Quirrel starts to cry. He isn’t sure why, except for the fact that Tiso’s pulse didn’t start again after it stopped, and Hornet’s masked face is pressed to Quirrel’s neck but he can’t feel her breathing, and the Vessel is lying where Ghost laid them, not moving even slightly.

And Ghost’s mask broke open, and the dark thing that came out of it is trembling like it’s—like  _ they’re _ about to collapse.

There’s nothing Quirrel can do. There’s nothing he could do for the moths, or for his Madame, or for Hallownest, there’s nothing he can do for Tiso or Hornet or Ghost or the Vessel.

He’s the only one here, and there’s nothing he can do.

The only one other than…

Quirrel turns.

The white thing—the  _ moth _ , she’s a moth—crouches on the stone, away from the collapsed Temple, wings curled around herself. 

“Can you—” Quirrel coughs, wet and sickly. He wipes his mouth, and his fingers come away slicked black and green. “Can you help them?”

The moth flutters, tilting her head. She chirps a noise, a word, but it’s not in a language Quirrel knows.

(Tiso would know, but Tiso’s heart isn’t beating.)

Quirrel fumbles through his memories, and settles on what he knows of signed language—more common than Wyrmtongue outside Hallownest’s borders.

_Please_. Foreclaws pressed to his chin, hand down and forward, claws curl in. Then again, for good measure. _Please._ _Help._ One hand, palm up, claws of the other resting on the palm, gesture forward. _Please help them._ He points, a little helplessly, at Hornet and Tiso and the Vessel and Ghost.

The moth glances up at Quirrel, as if evaluating him, and then hops over to Hornet.

She’s sort of small, for a Goddess. Maybe it’s just the way she’s sitting, hunched over with her legs under her, more fluff than form, wings resting on Hornet’s head and chest.

Hornet  _ convulses _ . She heaves, like she’s choking, then rolls onto her side and coughs something awful and black, like the Ghost-thing but slicker, like haemo, or like the infection. 

But she coughs it up, and then she’s breathing again, shaking like a leaf but  _ breathing _ , and the moth—the Radiance, Quirrel ought to use her name, even if he can barely breathe for the terror and grief—hops over to Tiso.

“What,” Hornet says, in a small voice, as Tiso gags and coughs under the Radiance’s ministrations. “ _ What. _ ”

Quirrel wipes the tears from his eyes. “I don’t want to come across as too optimistic, and curse our luck, but I do think we’ve succeeded.”

The Radiance flutters to her feet—which don’t look like feet at all, really, more like prosthetics—and looks up at Ghost.

(She doesn’t spare a glance for the Vessel. Quirrel can guess why.)

Ghost tilts their huge, spider-eyed, wavy-edged head. They lift something that looks like a hand and waves. It should be an awkward gesture, out of place, but there’s such sincerity in it that it makes Quirrel’s chest ache.

The Radiance stares up at them.

Ghost stares back.

Light tears the air in two, tears  _ Ghost _ in two, neatly, right between their sets of eyes and down the length of their body. 

The Radiance staggers back, as if surprised by her own violence.

“Ghost,” Quirrel says, intending to shout it, but his voice doesn’t come out as much more than a whisper. Beside him, Hornet  _ whimpers _ , like a wounded grub.

Half of Ghost turns to vapor, dissipating into the air, and the other half… melts. It sinks down to the ground, curling in on itself. Bits break off from the whole and turn to mist, but a core of liquid darkness remains, remaining somewhat cohesive within the cloud of dissolving void.

Quirrel doesn’t dare to hope, until the thing-that-was-Ghost opens its eyes.

It looks like Ghost. It’s fully made of darkness, with bright white eyes, and trails off into ribbons where Ghost’s legs would be, but it looks like them. There’s even a nail on its back.

It—they, because they must be Ghost, Quirrel refuses to accept anything else—they raise their hands, palms out, toward the Radiance.

The Radiance chirps. Ghost curls their claws into two v-shapes and waves them.  _ Peace. _

Quirrel holds his breath.

The Radiance stares Ghost down.

Tiso drags in a breath, coughs, and says something in a thick, musical language that fits his accent much better than Wyrmtongue.

Quirrel doesn’t know the word, but it sounds the same as Quirrel himself sounds when he says  _ Madame. _

The Radiance turns from Ghost and toward Tiso. She chitters at him, and Tiso chirps back, clipping the vowels between his mandibles and dragging the consonants through his nose.

She tilts her head toward Ghost and says something sharp.

Tiso replies, shaking his head. “Ghost,” he says. “Back up from her.”

Ghost complies.

There’s a long, wretchedly taut silence.

With no warning, a column of bright red fire erupts to Quirrel’s right. A lean, tall bug, with dark wings and bright red eyes, steps out of the ensuing smoke.

“Radi,” the creature says, in a voice like ash—or more accurately, like someone who’s just  _ inhaled _ it. “Radi-radi. You look  _ awful. _ ” 

The Radiance squawks at the newcomer, flailing her wings, but less like a bug under attack more like a startled grub.

“I could say the same to you,” the Radiance says, in Wyrmtongue, though there’s disdain in her voice as she shapes the syllables. “You sound ill.”

The tall bug coughs into its hand. “Oh, you know how it is. A vessel always has its flaws.”

“Hello,” Hornet says, loudly, startling Quirrel and practically everyone else. “What is  _ happening? _ ”

“Good question!” The tall bug says. “I am Grimm, Leader of the Grimm Troupe. This is the Radiance, who appears to be freed from her prison, at long last. If I had to guess, I’d say it was the doing of our little friend, who…” Grimm gestures at Ghost. “Appears to have lost their head. Do help them find it before they grow back into a god, will you? There’s already too many of us standing around here.” He sucks his teeth. “Gets messy, as I’m sure Radi can tell you.”

“I, ah,” Quirrel tries, as Tiso leaves his side and walks over to Ghost. “You speak Wyrmtongue, Radiance?”

The Radiance hisses, irately. “I’d rather not. The ant speaks Dreamtongue, why not you?”

Quirrel clears his throat. “The King did his work well, to our… unified chagrin. Tiso comes from outside Hallownest.”

The Radiance sinks to the ground, folding her legs under her. “Ah. The Vessel wasn’t mistaken, then.”

Quirrel shakes his head. “I’m sorry.”

The Radiance laughs—a scraping, wounded sound. “If anyone here has been honest, I think you have very little to apologize for.”

Quirrel twists his fingers together. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Hornet bending over the Vessel, her hands coming to rest at their throat, tracing across what’s left of their chest. “I’m sorry, regardless. It seems so obvious now, that something was wrong, but at the time I was… blind to it.”

“Quirrel!” Hornet says, in a voice that makes Quirrel snap to attention. “Where’s the nearest hot spring?”

Quirrel points, vaguely, then realizes how worthless that is, and stands up. His legs tremble, but he crosses the stone to where Hornet is lifting the Vessel by their surviving arm.

“Take their legs,” Hornet says, and Quirrel obligingly lifts the Vessel’s thin legs onto his shoulders, bearing their weight like a makeshift stretcher.

Quirrel looks back, for a moment. Grimm has a hand on the Radiance’s shoulder, and is speaking to her softly. As Quirrel watches, Grimm lifts her into his arms.

Beyond them, Tiso is holding half of Ghost’s broken mask, and Ghost is holding the other, picking their way across the rubble.

“Come with us,” Hornet says. “Ghost, I’ll repair your mask once our sibling is not in danger of dying.”

“Thank you,” Grimm calls as they start to move away, his smoky voice cracking when he raises it above a stage-whisper. “All of you.”

Tiso scoffs. “ _ Someone _ needed to fix this mess.”

“Yes,” Grimm replies. “But you  _ did. _ ”

**Author's Note:**

> And that's a wrap on the main plot! (Of a series that wasn't supposed to _have_ a plot... oh well.)
> 
> Don't worry, there will be more fics, but they'll probably be less intense in tone from now on, more focused on recovery & relationships. Thanks to everyone who's been reading along!


End file.
